Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations (e.g., eNodeBs) that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs). A UE may communicate with a base station via the downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the base station.
The wireless communications with a UE or a network device (e.g., base station, eNodeB) may take place over two separate radio access technologies (RATs) links, where the first RAT link may correspond to a WWAN RAT (e.g., Long Term Evolution (LTE)) and the second RAT link may correspond to a WLAN RAT (e.g., Wi-Fi). The connections to the RATs (e.g., links) are likely to have different properties in terms of data packet errors and delivery of the data packets to an entity at a receiving device that provides convergence for the data packets from the different RATs. In such a scenario, transmitting data (e.g., packet data units (PDUs)) over the two RAT links and aggregating the data at a packet convergence entity at the receiving device may pose challenges, particularly when the packet convergence entity receiving the data assumes that the data packet deliveries are in-order delivery but does not provide reliability support. Therefore, improving data packet handling at a packet convergence entity in a receiving device may reduce the impact on performance when data packets to be aggregated are received out of order.
In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there may be significant problems and shortcomings associated with current data aggregation technology.